It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like....well you know

I don't know why it's taking longer each year for me to decorate but it does.  The first day the house looked like it exploded.  I could have opened a gift shop with the amount of knick knacks that were in the livingroom. You see, I'm one of 'those people' who has to lovingly wrap and store the every day decorations while the holiday ones are out.  That means the time consuming task of transferred the every day stuff from the Halloween box to the Thanksgiving/Fall box to the Christmas boxes.  The other reason it's so time consuming is that this house is pretty small, and therefore cannot accommodate every single decoration and tree that I own.  So I have to go through four or five boxes/totes full of tree ornaments and knick knacks to decide what I want to put out.  

Started with the outside lights and added a second strand.

This is the first year I decided to put stuff in the kitchen window.  I realize it's pointless because you can only see if you are outside and it's daylight.  This is not a street-facing window, and with the curtains always shut, we can't even see it inside the house.  I put my 3 homemade snowglobes in it, plus some fake greens, white lights and a bunch of vintage glass balls that I got for a steal at a junk shop a couple years ago.

One little tree, on top of the stereo speaker

Two more little trees and a bejeweled bottle.

Putting these out each year gets more and more bittersweet as time slips by.  Each piece has a special memory or two associated with it, from my childhood to my last few years in Washington. We are making new memories too, of course, but this is only our 4th Christmas together.  So when I put stuff out I have a tendency to linger over it.  

Like the little free silver Santa bell that came unexpectedly with a catalog order in California.  I remember my delight when I saw it in the bottom of the box.  The Peace on Earth pom pom lion & lamb that my dad picked out on his own for my stocking when I was a kid cause he thought I'd think it was cute.  And the time I had a Christmas bonus burning a hole in my pocket in 2007 and I splurged on a large set of Rudolph figures.

And all the cross stitch projects I've done.  The gold tinsel tree that was in my dollhouse when I was little.

How I worked on this Santa day and night for months to get it done in time to show in the 2002 Puyallup Fair, destroying my eyesight in the process.

Fans of South Park will recognize Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo on the left.

I was digging around in the bottom of one of the boxes and pulled out that ceramic Seahawks ball! I forgot I had it and I also thought I left it behind.  

That's our first ornament hanging on the brass hanger, from 2011.  Behind it is a musical trio of mice that winds up and spins slowly to 'Santa Claus is Comin to Town'.  My Aunt Glady & Uncle Yimmy gave that to me when I was so little that it seems that I've always had it.  The 2 stained glass candle holders were bought at a cool shop in Orinda, CA called McWhorter's. I bought them in 1997, when I was working for Gillin Jacobson.  And that ceramic crescent Santa was bought on rainy Friday night, day after Thanksgiving, in San Rafael, CA in either 96 or 97 when we went downtown for the annual tree lighting and Christmas market. Someone on the street was selling it for like $4.00.  It's one of my fave decorations.

The Putz houses I got off ebay 2 years ago, to replace the ones my parents had and either lost, gave away or were stolen (I made the pink trees).

In the archway and w/o flash to show the lights in the garland.

Another angle.

Next to my chair.

Some of my friends decorated before Thanksgiving but that's a little too early for me.  I will probably leave these up till New Years, or whenever we are able to have Christmas with the kids.  Have you all decorated?  How long do you leave them up?

No Memory

I was over at Sharon's and she had some photo albums in the kitchen, that she was going to bring back down to Diane in Maryland.  I had my camera in the car so I decided to browse through the albums and shoot pictures of the pictures.  

I came across a few that were obviously taken on the same night, at a party my parents had in the coop.  Based upon the furniture and the Christmas stuff on the walls and windows, it had to be from December 1971. Back then, the heat and water were kept turned on in the coop all winter because my mom was a Camp Fire Girls Leader, and our meetings were held in out there, during the school year.  

Left to right:  Uncle Yim & Aunt Glady Wilkowski, my mom in the groovy pantsuit, Aunt Evelyn in the yellow and Irene Edquist.  Glady & Evelyn are sisters; Irene is Aunt Eve's daughter and Sha & Di's mom.   The Edquists and Aunt Glady & Uncle Yimmy always came up from New York, from Christmas through New Years.  

My parents.  I'm still wondering what possessed my mom to buy that pant suit.

Aunt Eve & Uncle Dick.

Irene & Hal Edquist.

Dear friends of the family, Gene & Carol Morrow.

Mom & Dad, Carol & Gene.  See the cigarette in Gene's hand?  It should be noted that of all the adults in these photos, my dad and Hal were the only non-smokers. All of us kids were raised around copious amounts of second hand smoke.

I was surprised to see this one of me, Sharon & Diane as part of the set of pictures from that night.  I have ZERO memory of it.  ZERO.  And clearly it was a night to be remembered, based upon the happy faces depicted in these photos.  I had just turned 7, Sharon was about to turn 9 and Diane was 6-1/2.  

Obviously there was music if Sharon & I were dancing.  How is it that I have no memory of this at all?  And where were the Morrows' kids, Marybeth, Gene & baby John?  Why weren't they here?

Why don't these photos jog my memory?  I wish they did.  :-(

Edaville Railroad

I am very fortunate to have been raised on Cape Cod when I was.  Although the west coast is, and always will be, my home, I recognize that my childhood in the 60's and 70's was safe and quaint and so quintessentially "New England".  It was a great place to grow up.

I also had the good fortune to have grown up across from a cranberry bog that had the only railroad tracks servicing Cape Cod at the far end of the bog.  I loved the sound of the train and I always would turn and look to see it, and count how many cars long it was.  I loved the little red caboose at the end, it always seemed like such a happy little car.  I loved the sound of the train whistle as it approached the crossings.  

So it was a real treat to be taken to Edaville Railroad, in Carver, MA, which is off Cape about 30 miles, south/southwest of Plymouth. 

Edaville opened in the late 1940's, by Ellis D. Atwood ("EDA").  He'd bought up some old trains and tracks from defunct railroads in Maine, and placed them around his cranberry bog plantation, to transport employees and equipment out to the bogs, and also to bring tourists around.  Many people don't know how cranberries are grown, so the tour around the bogs is very interesting.

Edaville grew over the years, with more collections of trains, engines, railroad memorabilia, etc.  I seem to recall there was a small railroad and cranberry-themed museum.  

My first memory of going to Edaville was on an elementary school trip.  I think it was 2nd grade, but might have been 1st.  I remember because Sheila was the kid that I 'buddied' with for the trip, since all of us had to have a partner on these field trips, to help the teachers keep track of the kids.  It was early fall, probably mid to late September because it was warm enough that all us kids and teachers had our lunch on the picnic tables outside, after we did the train tour around the bogs and went to the museum.  It was so exciting to be getting out of class for the day, heading off Cape (over the Bridge!!) in a caravan of yellow Sandwich school buses, toting our sack lunches.  The train windows were open, and it was a warm day, as it chugged its way around the working cranberry bogs, which were in the process of being harvested.

This picture, of all of the ones I found on line, reminds me the most of that field trip.

There was a very cool collection of old engines, cars, cabooses, etc.

Edaville was a lot of fun, no matter when you went, but it really came to life in December.  After the bogs are harvested, they are flooded for the winter, to protect the vines from freezing and dying.  The water and ice actually keeps them insulated.  The flooded bogs make for dramatic and magical reflections.

The train made it's way around the bogs and there were lots of lit shapes and decorations that stood out so much in the pitch black night.

I know my parents took me again at some point after the class trip, to take the train through the bogs and see the lights.  It was a tradition that most kids in our part of Massachusetts enjoyed, and some parents have kept up the tradition to this day.  

But the last time I went, my parents took me, my best friend Terry and her twin sister Vikki to Edaville to see the lights.  I would have to guess that it was probably Dec. of 1973.  It was so much fun.  Terry and I reunited on Facebook and I asked her if she remembered that night and I was pleased that she did.  When I think back on that night I remember the cold, crisp December air, laughing, hot chocolate, the crowd, escaping into the museum to warm up, buying candy and the magnificent lights and trains.

I never got the chance to go back after that.  Like everything else, I took it for granted.  Edaville was there, it was always gonna be there, I can go next year.  And then the next year I'd say, I'll go next year.  But I never did.  In the winter of 1988, Jef and I were planning to take his daughter, then 7, to Edaville.  Unfortunately she had managed to get in trouble w/ her mom & stepdad and was grounded the night we were gonna go.  I knew it had to be pretty serious b/c Jef's ex-wife, Ginnie, liked me and always allowed Alicia to hang out at my house on the Cape, w/ Jef too, even overnight.   Taking away the Edaville trip was the only punishment they could think of to discipline Alicia.  

Edaville changed hands over the years, closed in 1991, but was reopened in 1999.  Sheila told me today that it's for sale and if no one buys it, it will close indefinitely in early January.  She took her young son & grandson there last night and is so sad to think it was going to close forever.  I am too.  I wish I had taken the time to go just one last time. Now it's too late.